


you have to walk before you can fly

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 05:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5444549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Jemma,” Fitz breathes, horrified. She sees it at the same moment he does. Her hand is crusting over in hard stone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you have to walk before you can fly

Jemma takes the pair of screwdrivers from Fitz ( _really_? Every tool in the world at his disposal and he can’t be bothered to grab so much as a hammer until a screwdriver fails at managing a nail), careful to exert the same amount of pressure he had been. He’s equally careful in extracting himself from under her arm and hurries across the lab.

“Just a sec, I know I’ve got that scanner in here somewhere.”

“I don’t see why I couldn’t have looked for it,” she grouses and, predictably, he lectures her on precisely why he is better suited for the task. It’s familiar bickering, so much like they used to be before Will and the planet, even before HYDRA and the fall.

She smiles to herself as she bends over the open interior of the device the team brought them. They’re still trying to figure out its precise origins (as well as what it _does_ ). Fitz has money on Asgard, while Jemma says it’s terrestrial and he’s hoping to prove his theory by examining the sort of energy the thing’s putting out. As if she’ll let him win on such flimsy evidence. They’re going to do a full work-up and, with any luck, they’ll be friends again by the time they’re through.

They need this, a problem so like the old days to remind them how things used to be before everything got so messy. And Fitz especially needs a break from thinking up ways to bring Will home for her. He’s driving himself mad over it and no matter how many times he says it’s the right thing to do, she can see it’s killing him.

He’s still going on, reminding her about the toaster she set on fire in their Academy days as proof she should have the dull task. She rolls her shoulders, aching from the way she has to hold her elbows so high to match the hold Fitz had on the device, and the motion allows her a glimpse of a blue light inside.

“Oh! I think I see the power source!” she says eagerly, angling for a better look. It does, admittedly, appear more alien than she would have liked, but that still doesn’t mean it’s _Asgardian_.

“Good! Just lemme recalibrate this and-”

Jemma doesn’t hear the rest, if there is more. Maybe it’s her trying to get a better view through the narrow opening. Maybe it’s her arm giving out. Maybe it’s the metal finally giving way. Whatever the reason, a puff of dust flies into the air.

She drops the screwdrivers and slams her hand down on the emergency quarantine alert. Immediately the doors seal shut and a crisscross of energy barriers like the one in Vault D shimmer through the lab, breaking it up into sections to minimize exposure. She’s caught between two of them and hastily drops back a step, allowing the barrier to finish forming and hoping she was fast enough to save herself.

She turns and Fitz is staring at her, wide-eyed, from two sections over. “It’s probably nothing,” she says brightly. Over his shoulder, she can see the emergency response team, along with Daisy and Mack. She waves an arm over her shoulder to show the team where the trouble’s located. “But you _did_ say you think it’s Asgardian and we’ve had so much trouble-”

“Jemma,” Fitz breathes, horrified.

She sees it at the same moment he does. Her hand is crusting over in hard stone. She can’t move it, can’t move a lot of things. She’s having difficulty filling her lungs.

Fitz is cursing, saying they should have known this was another of the Inhuman booby traps that have been springing up ever since word got out that Lash was a SHIELD agent all along. Daisy is pounding on the window, saying it’s okay, they don’t know that Jemma’s not an inhuman, maybe…

Jemma doesn’t have time for Fitz’s anger or Daisy’s hope. She only has enough time to draw in one, shallow breath of air, and her vision is overtaken by the chrysalis.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Knock knock knock,” Hunter says while tapping gently on her bedroom door. “Here to see the prisoner.”

His teasing statement is enough to take the edge off his unbearably loud entrance.

“I’m not a prisoner,” Jemma says, the sound muffled. She _is_ an inhuman though. Lucky thing or she’d have died in the labs the other day. Not that she feels especially lucky at the moment. She’s been holed up in her room ever since being released from quarantine.

It’s not _only_ the looks she gets - though that is a big part of it - it’s the _noise_. The first thing she noticed when she emerged was how much louder everything was. Daisy’s worried questioning was like thunder and Fitz’s footsteps were like wrecking balls. And that was before she’d even finished transitioning.

“No,” Hunter agrees, “you’re just hiding from everyone.”

She pulls her knees a little tighter to her chest and he takes a seat on the edge of her bed.

“Which is fair,” he says, lifting a curious hand. “But eventually you have to come out. We’re still your friends.”

She doesn’t know how it was decided that he would be the one to come for her - possibly they’re all still arguing over it right now and he just walked away from the fight; it would be just like him. She’s glad it’s him though. She hasn’t told anyone - it would make him insufferably smug if he knew - but his accent makes his voice much less grating on her ears than the others’.

She watches his hand draw steadily closer. “You do know that they’re part of me, right?” she asks just before his knuckles touch the pale feathers.

“Yeah,” he says slowly, drawing the word out. Quickly he diverts his aim and pats her head. “But I touch you other places.”

She bites her lips to keep her scowl from turning into a grin. “No one touches the wings.”

Hunter rolls his eyes impressively and Jemma ruffles her feathers just to drive her point home. It allows some cooler air to enter the little cocoon of self-pity she’s built around herself and she shivers.

The wings came after the chrysalis shattered. She had a few brief seconds of shock over how loud everything had become and relief that she was alive, and then the pain threw her to her knees as her wings grew in. If _that’s_ what Dr. Garner goes through every time he became Lash, Jemma doesn’t much blame him for acting out (though the murder _is_ still a bit much).

They’re not all. Her bones are hollow like a bird’s now and she imagines the wings are strong enough to support her in flight, but she hasn’t tried as yet. She can’t quite find the motivation to willingly throw herself from a height.

“So,” Hunter says heavily, “I’m not just here to touch your wings.”

She twitches the one closest to him. “No touching.”

“No touching,” he agrees. “But there’s this big debate going on out there and we need your input.”

She sighs. “If it’s about the origins of the device, I think we’ve pretty well established it was only meant to fool us into thinking it might be alien-”

“No no-” Hunter blinks. “You’ll have to fight Fitz on that though. He thinks whoever planted the crystal in there just found the- You know what? Never mind. Not my problem. I’m here about Mack.”

“Mack? Is he hurt?”

“Nah. But he is _really_ torn. Doesn’t know if he should call you Wings or Angel. Daisy’s all for Angel but Bob says Wings is way cooler and you’re gonna have to weigh in at some point to stop the madness.”

Jemma ducks her head, hiding her blush in her knees. The wings lift a fraction, blocking her from his view. He lets it go on a few seconds before grabbing the top of her wing the same way he would her arm and forcing it down so he can see her clearly.

“So what’s it gonna be?”

She shakes him off and she really needs to test her new strength because the one quick motion sends him tumbling right off the bed.

“Sorry!” she cries, leaning over the edge of the mattress to see that he’s all right.

She needn’t have worried. He’s laughing on her rug, but he stops to smile and say, “You wanna make it up to me?”

She rolls her eyes. “That depends.”

He leans back on his hands and raises an eyebrow curiously.

“On how much Bobbi would hate your request.”

He barks out another laugh. “Fair. But this is more you not making me regret my very terrible decision - made while you were still all pale and recovering in the sweatshirts and all,” he adds with a tone of accusation, “to take you to the stupid concert tonight.” He produces two tickets from his pocket.

The tickets are for Fully Clothed Gentlemen, a cover band she idly began looking into when she saw they’d be visiting the area. Before she knew it, she was desperate to go, but as she hadn’t yet been cleared by Dr. Garner to leave the Playground without supervision, she needed to convince someone to take her, just in case. Hunter had been the easiest mark by far.

Her wings droop. “I’d rather not,” she says softly, easing back into her seat in the middle of the bed.

“Oh, come on. I had Fitz whip up three different density earplugs - one of ‘em’s gotta take the edge off the sound and still let you enjoy the show.”

She shakes her head against her knees. Her arms are already tight around her legs but her wings she’s slower to move, giving Hunter the time he needs to leap back into his seat beside her, blocking her way.

“Come on. You have to leave this room _sometime_. You can hide the wings easy and no one there is gonna know there’s anything amiss. You’ll be completely anonymous. It’s the perfect pick-me-up.” He waves the tickets invitingly. “ _You know you want to_ ,” he sing-songs. “You were so excited about this a few weeks ago!”

She was, and that’s the problem. She never would have wanted to go for herself, except-

“Will’s favorite band is the Barenaked Ladies,” she says. “That’s why I wanted to go.”

Hunter tips his head to one side. “Really?” he asks dryly. “I never would’ve guessed.”

“You _knew_?” she asks, sincerely shocked. “But you hate Will!”

Hunter lets out a prolonged moan and leans into her space as it pulls out of him. “Just because I’m on Fitz’s side,” he says carefully when he’s finished being a drama queen, “doesn’t mean I’m not on _your_ side. I just figured the girls had you covered for support with the-” he waves a hand through the air- “sleepover stuff.”

Jemma quirks an eyebrow, uncertain what Hunter thinks she and the other women on base do when the men aren’t around. She’s not sure she wants to know.

“Fitz just needs someone to say what he wants to hear but knows isn’t true. Namely, that Will is a terrible human being. Because he’s not. At all. It’s really unfair of you to disappear to a deep, dark corner of space and find the previously-thought-to-be mythological perfect guy. On paper, Will’s a saint, but on top of it he’s spent years keeping the smoke monster from the Lost island out of his head and then he went and saved _your_ life?” He shakes his head. “Fitz never stood a chance, did he?”

It’s not nearly as simple as all that, but there’s no way she’s going to get into that with Hunter of all people.

“So let’s go to that concert, shall we? For good ol’ Will.”

Jemma shakes her head.

“Oh, why not?” he asks in what is undoubtedly a whine.

She closes her eyes. “I wanted to go to feel close to Will.”

“Riiiiight. What’s the problem?”

She doesn’t answer, not aloud at any rate. Her wing-tips twitch and Hunter ohhs.

“So, lemme get this straight,” he says after a few seconds. “You think this guy, who fell in love with you while you were in hell, when you were dirty and stinking and hadn’t bathed in months, is gonna care that you grew _wings_?”

She gives him a hard look. Wings are _not_ the same as a little mutual body odor.

“We’ve established that the guy is perfect. He’s-” He grins and Jemma just _knows_  that whatever he says next is going to make her want to hit him. “He’s a saint, and what saint doesn’t love an angel?”

She flaps one of her wings in his direction and he dodges ungracefully out of the way before she can reach. Her momentum carries her halfway to her feet before she gives up chasing him.

“So we’re going, yeah?” he asks, grinning like an idiot.

She sets her feet on the ground. “Yes, we’re going.”

“Good.” He pockets the tickets and moves to leave so she can get ready. “And,” he throws around the edge of the door, “don’t forget to bring a jacket - because it’s cold, of course.”

He meets her level stare with a cheeky grin and disappears. Good thing too, she only holds in her laughter for a few more seconds.

Maybe, she thinks as she opens her closet, she was wrong about Hunter sneaking away from a fight over who would talk to her. Just yesterday Daisy, Bobbi, and even May brought her armloads of fashionable yet discreet jackets to hide her wings. “For whenever you’re ready to leave the Playground,” they said. It’s possible their generosity was part of a multi-pronged attack to get her back in the world.

She hugs the short trench coat May gave her to her chest as tears sting her eyes. She doesn’t know about saints or Will, but she does know she has a lot of people right here who love her no matter what she’s become.

Maybe one day they’ll even be able to get her to try flying - but that one’s still a long way off. For the moment, going to a concert is progress aplenty.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic came from a couple of different places. Over on tumblr, hail-simmons tagged [a post of mine](http://ilosttrackofthings.tumblr.com/post/135153979689/be-wary-child-for-even-the-devil-was-once-an) with _im still waiting for winged inhuman!jemma_ and I couldn't get it out of my head. And sapphireglyphs, ages and ages ago, requested "Take a jacket. It’s cold outside" from the 100 ways to say I love you meme for Jemma and Hunter.


End file.
